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My annual seed ordering always includes looking back on the past year and noting what vegetables delighted, both in the garden and at the table, and what vegetables disappointed. I order more of the vegetables that brought delight, and for the vegetables that disappointed, I find replacements or try harder to grow them successfully this coming year.

The biggest disappointment by far was Territorial Seed’s Ancho Magnifico Pepper. As I wrote to Territorial at the end of the season: “What happened to Ancho Magnifico Pepper seed this year? I’ve grown them for years, appreciating their habit of turning from ‘green to bright red’ and their ‘classic poblano flavor.’ This year’s peppers turned from green to a chocolate/purple color and, more troubling, had no poblano flavor, instead just a dull bitterness.” Territorial responded: “We have made note of the inconsistencies to our buyers,” and they refunded the cost of the seeds. Still, nervous about another off year for Ancho Magnifico, I’m trying a new poblano, Caballero Ancho from Fedco , advertised as having “a perfect balance of heat and sweet rich flavor in their thick flesh and ribs” and maturing to a “deep brick red.” I hope they will delight and give us lots of peppers to roast and freeze for winter 2021.

Other disappointments were my fault. My winter squash crop was very light this year, and I think a factor was that I let the plants grow too many leaves while still in their pots before setting them out. This year, I’ll try to follow my usual practice of starting squash seeds in 4” pots and setting them out as soon as the first true leaves form. My onion crop was also light, a result, I think, of neglecting the starts as they grew in their 1-inch flat, letting them dry out and then overwatering them, so that the starts that finally went into the ground weren’t strong. Finally, I had a very poor basil crop, both because the plants got a little pot bound and because I set them out in a less-than-ideal spot. The plants produced enough leaves to flavor platters of tomatoes but not enough for lots of pesto.

Despite these disappointments, the delights, both in the garden and at the table, were many. As I look down the list, I see that a lot started with the letter C: Cauliflower, Corn, Cucumber, Chard, Chicories.

Flame Star Cauliflower: In 2018, I thought Purple of Sicily was my new favorite cauliflower, but then I tried yet another colorful cauliflower, the pastel orange Flame Star and think I have a new favorite. Not only is it beautiful in the garden, glowing orange against the crown of green leaves, it is gorgeous and delicious at the table.

It keeps its warm orange color after roasting and, more important, it has a rich, sweet flavor and creamy texture. I grew it in both spring and fall and will plant again for each season this year. And, not to leave out classic white cauliflowers, the over-wintered cauliflower All-the-year-round was a delicious wonder in early winter 2019.

Café corn: I’ve grown Café corn from Fedco since 2017, and 2019’s crop was the best so far. As in past years, the seeds germinated well even in cool early May soil, and the plants grew quickly, setting 3 to 4 full ears on each stalk along with some half ears. What impressed me this year was how long the ears held on the plant without getting tough. This meant I could bring corn on the cob to potlucks and serve it to guests at my table over several weeks. And there was still plenty of corn to make a new favorite corn salad with Shishito peppers: Spicy Corn and Shishito Salad and to put up corn for the freezer.

Cucumbers: I haven’t grown cucumbers for years because I thought I was the only one in the family who liked them. They are so tasty with tomatoes in a summer salad, though, that I had to grow them again. My friend Anne recommended Marketmore 76, a classic green cucumber. Even though my starts got a little pot-bound and I didn’t set the plants in a very good spot, they still produced lots of sweet, crisp cucumbers all season long. I’ll grow Marketmore 76 again this year and also try Marketmore 86 for comparison.

Chard: As summer cooled into fall, we started eating chard from plants I’d started in mid-summer, and I was reminded how sweetly earthy and tender braised chard can be. How could I have forgotten how good chard is, and how beautiful, especially Rainbow Chard? The harvest has continued into late fall and early winter and, given chard’s hardiness, we should be enjoying it for the rest of the winter despite our recent cold and snow. I will plant a larger crop for 2020.

Chicories: I’ve relied on red radicchios and pale green sugarloaf chicories for many years for colorful winter salads. Last year, I added variegated chicories and radicchios, plants whose heads and leaves are shades of red, pink and white as well as green with red speckles. Variegata di Castelfranco Chicory and Variegata di Chioggia Radicchio both from Adaptive Seeds, are not only beautiful, they have the perfect balance of bitterness and sweetness characteristic of this Italian green.

They make gorgeous salads on their own but also mix well with fall pears or roasted winter vegetables like turnips, rutabagas and carrots. I’ll keep growing these beautiful winter greens and keep looking for more varieties to try.

Various peppers, radishes and tomatoes also delighted this past year. Shishito pepper Takara from Fedco produced dozens and dozens of thin-walled, 1×3 inch peppers that blistered beautifully in a little oil in a hot frying pan to make a quick appetizer. These shishitos were also the star of the corn and shishito pepper salad I mention above. They were delicious green and just as tasty when they turned red.

Radishes were also especially good this year and I most often sliced them and mixed them with yogurt to make a refreshing salad, tasty with roasted meat but also delicious on its own. Varieties I grow are Cheriette and Champion from Fedco.

Yogurt Radish Salad

Makes 2 cups

1–2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar, optional

2 teaspoons coarse salt, or to taste

Cracked black pepper to taste

2 cups thinly sliced radishes

1 clove crushed garlic

1/2 cup whole milk yogurt, drained if watery

In a medium bowl, mix together the vinegar, sugar, salt and a little pepper. Toss in the radishes and allow to marinate for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Toss in the garlic and yogurt and serve.

Finally, my friend Carol give me a start of Green Doctors cherry tomato, named for Dr. Amy Goldman and Dr. Carolyn Male, both authors of excellent tomato books. I planted it between some already established plants, and it was slow to catch up, but when it eventually set tomatoes and they ripened, I loved the sweet/tart flavor and the pretty green with yellow blush of this one-inch cherry tomato. Carol is going to give me a few seeds to start my own plants this year. With Sweet Million, Orange Parouche, and Sunchocola, Green Doctors makes a colorful bowl of delicious red, orange, purple and green cherry tomatoes to take to potlucks or serve at our table or simply for snacks.

Looking back on past gardening years and ahead to the new gardening year are especially pleasant ways to spend cool, dark January days. Soon seed packets will be arriving, days will be getting longer, and it will be time to plant. There’s lots to delight in the garden year ahead. Happy seed ordering!

Note: In January 2018 I published a post listing all the seeds I was planning to plant that year, some brief comments about why I’d chosen these vegetables and these varieties, and links to posts I’d written about many of these vegetables. In January 2019 I republished this table with updates on what I especially liked in 2018, what didn’t work so well and new varieties I was going to try in 2019. Today’s January 2020 planting plans post updates 2018 and 2019 posts in another format, paragraphs that describe vegetables delighted, both in the garden and at the table, and vegetables that disappointed. Return to the 2018 and 2019 posts for a full alphabetical listing of all I’ll be planting.

Last January, I published a blog post titled “What I’m planting in 2018.” Using a table format, I listed all the seeds I planned to plant in 2018, some brief comments about why I’d chosen these vegetables and these varieties, and links to posts I’d written about many of the vegetables over the years of this Lopez Island Kitchen Garden blog. For 2019, I’m republishing this table with updates on what I especially liked in 2018, what didn’t work so well and new varieties I’m going to try this year. These updates are in bold face below. As I wrote last year: I hope this list will be a useful resource and, more important, that anyone who has other vegetables and vegetable varieties they like will share them in return.

Seed

What I’ll plant in 2019

Comments

A = Adaptive Seeds

F= Fedco Seeds

J = Johnny’s Selected Seeds

TSC = Territorial Seed Co.

UP = Uprising Seeds

Arugula

Arugula OG F

I plant in August as a fall and winter green.

Basil

Genovese F

Sweet F

Round Midnight F

Genovese and Sweet are both good green basil. Round Midnight is purple and a lovely accent color.

I started seeds too late this year (end of June) but set plants in the cold frame anyway where they grew well but the melons didn’t mature. This year, I’ll start them earlier and use the cold frame again

Fioretto was a disappointment, both in flavor and production, so I won’t grow it in 2019. I will, however, grow lots of Purple of Sicily cauliflower. I may even skip snow crown! And I plan to try an orange cauliflower, Flame Star.

Carrots

Mokum F

Purple Haze F

Red Cored Chantenay F

White Satin F

Yellowstone F

In addition to orange Mokum and Chantenay, Purple Haze, White Statin and Yellowstone offer beautiful colors as well as sweet, crisp flavor. Purple Haze is my favorite for flavor and beauty of these three colorful, non-orange carrots.

Celeriac

Brilliant F

Tellus AD

Both celery root varieties have great flavor but Tellus is a tiny bit sweeter.

Fordhook is winter hardy in the garden and tender on the plate. I’m trying Argentata this year for its thicker stems.

I won’t grow Argentata this year. I didn’t use the stems as much as I’d anticipated. For a different chard, I’m going to try an all red chard this year, Red Rhubarb, described by Fedco as very hardy and a 19th century heirloom from Europe.

Collards

Cascade Glaze F

Flash TSC

Despite its rough appearance, collards are very tender when sautéed. It’s a great winter green alone or mixed with cabbage.

Both collards did really well this year. I especially liked Cascade Glaze both for its shiny, yellow-green leaves and its flavor. Its sweet, tender leaves were even good raw mixed into kale salads.

Corn

Café F

Candy Mountain AD

Café matured early in 2017 and was very sweet. I’m trying Candy Mountain for comparison this year

Candy Mountain was a disappointment. Very starchy and not at all sweet. I’ll stay with Café this year.

Cucumber

Marketmore F

I’ve grown Poona Kheera off and on over the years and liked it, but this year, on the recommendation of my friend Anne, I will try the classic Marketmore just to have a green slicing cuke.

Eggplant

Diamond F

Galine F

Rosa Bianca F

These three eggplant produce reliably in my kitchen garden when grown in a cloche.

Galine was my favorite in 2018 for earliness, productivity and smoky sweet flavor. I’m tempted to grow only Galine in 2019.

Escarole/Endive/

Radicchio

Borca A

Pan di Zucchero F

Indigo F

Fiero F

Radicchio de Treviso F

Variegata de Chioggia A

Borca and Pan di Zucchero, both sugarloaf chicories, have become one of our favorite winter greens.

Both the sugarloaf and Treviso radicchios were great this year, but the biggest treat was the red, pink and white striped variety, Variegata de Chioggia from Adaptive Seeds. I’ll definitely grow more of this variety this year. It was beautiful as well as sweet and crunchy in winter salads.

While I like big winter squash like Buttercup and Blue Kuri for pies, mashes and soups, I’ve also grown to like smaller, one-meal squash like Honeyboat Delicata for roasting. And for the past few years I’ve also liked Butternut squashes for both roasting and stews.

Tomato

Amish paste F

Brandywine, Pink F

Cherokee Carbon TSC

Cherokee Purple TSC

Darby Red & Yellow A

Dester SSE

Fiachetto de Manduria UP

GenuwineTSC

Golden Jubilee (aka Golden Sunray) F

Hillbilly TSC

Jasper Cherry F

Jaune de Flamme F

Momotaro F

Mortgage Lifter TSC

Orange Paruche TSC

Prudens Purple F

Speckled Roman F

Sunchocola Cherry TSC

Weavers Black BrandywineF

Aosta Valley F

Flaming Burst F

Sungreen Garden TSC

Each year, I grow old favorites, return to some I’ve grown and liked in the past (underlined), and try some new (italics) that look intriguing. I was especially pleased this year to find in the Fedco description of Golden Jubilee that this tomato used to be offered under the name Golden Sunray, an old favorite of mine. Search my blog for many post about drying tomatoes, roasting tomatoes, training tomatoes and growing tomatoes.

Golden Sunray was as sweetly spicy as I remembered. The Fedco catalog also describes it as smooth-textured and I agree that it’s one of the creamiest tomatoes I grow. If there are any left when nights get cold at the end of the season, they ripen beautifully in a paper bag, keeping their flavor and texture better than any other bag-ripened tomato I grow.

Genuwine was good but not outstanding. I will probably grow it this year to give it another chance.

Hillbilly was a pretty and very tasty “golden-orange” tomato with “red streaked flesh and skin.” It looks especially pretty sliced and layered with red tomatoes on a serving platter. I’ll grow it again this year.

Jasper Cherry was OK didn’t develop deep, sweet flavor until late in the season. I may go back to Sweet Million, an old favorite.

Weavers Black Brandywine was OK. I may give it one more year or stop.

Aosta Valley: my friend Carol gave me seeds of this Fedco variety. Like Fiachetto de Manduria, it’s excellent for roasting and freezing but it’s also sweeter and richer flavored than Fiachetto. I will definitely grow it again this year and it may eventually replace Fiachetto de Manduria.

I like serving big bowls of mixed-color cherry tomatoes. To the red, orange and purple cherries I grow now, I’d like to add a yellow and a green. I’m thinking of Flaming Burst yellow cherry from Fedco and Sungreen Garden green cherry from Territorial.

This week I gave a presentation on kitchen garden design to the Lopez Island Garden Club. As examples of kitchen gardens, I used photographs that my husband Scott took this past July of more than a dozen kitchen gardens here on Lopez Island. From his work, I selected photos of garden gates, vegetable beds, tomato houses and berry enclosures to illustrate the wide range of design options in each of these areas. My thanks to all the Lopez Island kitchen gardeners who shared their gardens, apologies to those whose gardens I missed, and special thanks to Scott for taking the photographs.

One of the many pleasures of this seed-ordering time of year is sharing seed order lists with friends and family. I send my sister Sarah my annual order list and enjoy seeing hers. And it’s always fun to have seed conversations with my neighbor Carol and with other gardening friends. In this spirit of sharing, I’ve made a table listing all the seeds I’m planning to plant this year, some brief comments about why I’ve chosen these vegetables and these varieties, and very often links to posts I’ve written about many of these vegetables over the years of this Lopez Island Kitchen Garden blog. I hope this list will be a useful resource and, more important, that anyone who has other vegetables and vegetable varieties they like will share them in return.

Here’s a key to the seed catalog sources listed by letter after each variety:

A = Adaptive Seeds

F= Fedco Seeds

J = Johnny’s Selected Seeds

MT = Moose Tubers

PT = Pinetree

SSE = Seed Savers Exchange

TSC = Territorial Seed Company

UP = Uprising Seeds

Seed

What I’ll plant in 2018

Comments

Arugula

Arugula F

I plant arugula in August as a fall and winter green.

Basil

Genovese F

Sweet F

Round Midnight F

Genovese and Sweet are both good green basil. Round Midnight is purple and a lovely accent color with sliced tomatoes.

In addition to orange Mokum and Chantenay, Purple Haze, White Statin and Yellowstone offer beautiful colors as well as sweet, crisp flavor. Purple Haze is my favorite for flavor and beauty of these three colorful, non-orange carrots.

Celeriac

Brilliant F

Tellus A

Both celery root varieties have great flavor but Tellus is a tiny bit sweeter.

While I like big winter squash like Buttercup and Blue Kuri for pies, mashes and soups, I’ve also grown to like smaller, one-meal squash like Honeyboat Delicata for roasting. And for the past few years I’ve also liked Butternut squashes for both roasting and stews.

Tomato

Amish paste F

Brandywine, Pink F

Cherokee Carbon TSC

Cherokee Purple TSC

Darby Red & Yellow A

Dester SSE

Fiachetto de Manduria UP

Genuwine TSC

Golden Jubilee (aka Golden Sunray) F

Hillbilly TSC

Jasper Cherry F

Jaune de Flamme F

Momotaro F

Mortgage Lifter TSC

Orange Paruche TSC

Prudens Purple F

Speckled Roman F

Sunchocola Cherry TSC

Weavers Black Brandywine F

Each year, I grow old favorites, return to some I’ve grown and liked in the past (underlined), and try some new (italics) that look intriguing. I was especially pleased this year to find in the Fedco description of Golden Jubilee that this tomato used to be offered under the name Golden Sunray, an old favorite of mine. Search my blog for many post about drying tomatoes, roasting tomatoes, training tomatoes and growing tomatoes.

There are a couple of steps I follow when preparing to order new seeds each year. I reorganize seed packets in the shallow boxes where I keep them, replacing the spring, summer, fall planting order they’ve been in since the start of the last planting year with an alphabetical order that matches most seed catalog layouts, and then I check the contents of each packet and decide what seeds I need to order for the year ahead. This year, however, my seed boxes seemed fuller than ever and the challenge of alphabetizing so many packets prompted me to look seriously at my seed-ordering habits. Just how long have I been keeping some of these seed packets and why?

If I want more of a variety and the seed packet is empty, it’s an easy decision to order more. But if there are a few, or more than a few, seeds left in packets ordered one, two, three or more years ago, do I order new seeds and avoid the risk of running out or do I stay with the old seeds, plant what’s left, and hope for germination? I confess to the habit of ordering new if there’s the slightest chance I’ll need them but also keeping the old even though I do know that seeds don’t stay viable forever. As a result, my seed boxes have arugula going back to 2011, beets to 2009, broccoli to 2008, corn to 2007 and on through the alphabet to some really old zucchini seeds. Two boxes have become five.

Getting serious about sorting out these overflowing boxes, I searched for some seed viability charts. Of the many charts online, I settled on one from the High Mowing Seeds, a table that lists seeds alphabetically in one column and “longevity under proper seed storage conditions” in the next. Using it, I separated my seed collection into two boxes of probably viable and three boxes of most likely not viable. I’m not ready to discard these older seeds quite yet; I do remember times when some officially expired seeds of corn, peas and onions have germinated. But at least when this year’s seed packets arrive, I’ll have a much easier time filing them into the current, thinned out, viable seeds boxes.

Seed Type

Longevity Under Proper Seed Storage Conditions

Artichokes

5 years

Arugula

3 years

Beans

3 years

Beets

4 years

Broccoli

3 years

Brussels Sprouts

4 years

Cabbage

4 years

Carrots

3 years

Cauliflower

4 years

Celery/Celeriac

5 years

Chard

4 years

Collards

5 years

Corn

2 years

Cress

5 years

Cucumbers

5 years

Eggplant

4 years

Endive/Escarole

5 years

Fennel

4 years

Kale

4 years

Kohlrabi

4 years

Leeks

1 year

Lettuce

5 years

Melons

5 years

Mustard

4 years

Okra

2 years

Onions

1 year

Peas

3 years

Peppers

2 years

Pumpkins

4 years

Radish

5 years

Rutabagas

4 years

Spinach

2-3 years

Summer Squash

4 years

Tomatoes

4 years

Turnips

5 years

Watermelon

4 years

Winter Squash

4 years

Another thing I do while sorting through seed packets is to note the especially successful varieties from the year before. There were four new varieties from 2017, all from Territorial Seeds, that I will definitely plant again:

Redbor Kale: advertised as “vigorous and cold hardy…both beautiful and tasty. Mild and crisp, this finely curled kale adds a flash of color to salads.” I’ll grow even more plants next year.

Hunter Butternut Squash: I really like Burpee’s Butterbush butternut squash but the description of Hunter tempted me to order seeds for comparison. Hunter is everything the description claims and I’ll plant it again next year: “A classic butternut that sprints past most common varieties, maturing faster than any of them that we’ve trialed! The shapely fruit have creamy, smooth textured, sweet orange flesh, and average 1 1/4 to 2 pounds each. Healthy plants are highly productive too. These long-storing squash will provide delicious eating all winter long.”

Cherokee Carbon Tomato: “The best of Cherokee Purple and Carbon, these beautiful beefsteaks have a dusky blush and rich, delicious flavor.” Who knew there’d be a tomato even tastier than Cherokee Purple? From Territorial’s Heirloom marriage series, Cherokee Carbon is one that I will definitely plant again.

Orange Paruche Cherry Tomato: I’m always tempted to try taste-test winners and I can see why Orange Paruche won. It has replaced Sungold as my favorite orange tomato. “The quintessential flavor of summer is captured in these succulent, sweet and flavorful fruit. Orange Paruche excels in productivity with astonishing quantities of brilliant, glowing orange fruit that are irresistible and vitamin-packed. The 1-inch round fruit crowd branched trusses on the indeterminate, vigorous plants. The winner of our in-house taste test.”

And how long will I keep these seeds before reordering them? According to the seed viability chart, seeds of kale, winter squash and tomatoes should be good for four years. Unless I run out, I’ll try not to order more until 2021.

I’ve just finished the last big kitchen garden task of the year, planting cover crops in the eight beds that have held summer and storage crops since late spring. It’s a multi-step process that starts with cutting back and hauling away for composting the spent foliage of corn, beans, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, squash, onions and potatoes. The next steps focus on replenishing the soil that supported all this food from spring to now. They are the most important things I do for the kitchen garden.

Our soil is clay loam that I learned early on needs infusions of organic matter every year to sustain the next year’s crops. The sources of organic matter I’ve settled on are winter cover crops and compost. Without them, clay loam becomes more clay than loam. To avoid this scary fate, every fall I spread the beds with a sprinkling of complete organic fertilizer, lightly work in a 2-3 inch layer of compost and then scatter on seeds of a cover crop and rake them in.

In the past, I’ve covered the beds with Reemay to protect the seeds from birds until they germinate and begin growing, but this year I spread a thin layer of the mulch over the bed, recycling the mulch that had kept down weeds and kept in moisture in the beds all summer. I’m hoping this mulch will protect the germinating and growing seeds and will also break down over the winter and provide one more source of organic matter.

For the past few years the cover crop I’ve used is Merced rye from Osborne’s Seeds in Mt. Vernon. The rye replaces Austrian Field Pea which I used for years until I discovered that it was harboring a population of pea weevils that later feasted on my sugarsnap peas and fava beans. (For more on pea weevils see the entry for April 29, 2014 on Linda Gilkeson’s Gardening Tips ) I’m hoping the rye will break this cycle.

As the Osborne catalog description says: This vigorous winter cereal grain is a great choice for winter cover and soil stabilization. It grows rapidly in cool weather, forming a dense stand with an extensive root system that absorbs unused soil nitrogen and loosens heavy soils while suppressing weeds. It is important to incorporate quickly once mowed, or the stalks will become very woody. Rapid growth in the spring can be controlled by mowing. Sow 90-110 pounds per acre, increase as it gets later in the season or if your seed bed is rough. I follow their advice and mow the rye down with the mulching lawn mower several times from late February through mid-March. Then I’ll cover the beds with black plastic or a tarp and let the cover crop rot down for about a month. I experimented with this step several years ago and was really pleased to find that the rye grass as well as the roots broke down considerably under this cover, leaving friable soil nearly ready for planting.

Planting the cover crop is easy. The challenge is having enough compost to add to all the beds. Despite our efforts, we haven’t been able to make enough compost each year for all our beds. There’s usually enough to use in the fall or in the spring when I plant buckwheat in the beds that have held winter crops, but never enough for both seasons. Fortunately for us, though, there’s a great source of compost right here on Lopez Island. At Midnight’s Farm, David Bill and Faith Van De Putte have been making compost that is a perfect for our garden. Check out the Midnight’s Farm website and be sure to watch the 3-minute video that describes the compost making process.

A couple of weeks ago we stopped by Midnight’s Farm in our small pick-up truck for a yard of sweet-smelling compost that was enough to add to this fall’s eight beds.

A bonus of driving to Midnight’s Farm is getting what David calls his “five-minute tour” of the compost operation, two minutes longer than the website video and just as inspiring.

In fact, a few days later as my husband Scott was chipping up our corn stalks and other summer garden foliage and building our compost bins he imagined just taking all this garden waste to David next year and letting him and his machines do the work. It might be hard to give up making our own compost, but then again, it might not.

This week, the fall rains have begun in earnest, watering down through the layers of mulch, cover crop seeds and compost to the kitchen garden soil, starting the process of rebuilding the soil for next year. The next kitchen garden task won’t be for a few months when seed catalogs start arriving and I begin January by ordering seeds for the year ahead. But for now, the garden is resting and so am I.

I love gardening and the meals that the kitchen garden offers, but I love traveling too. As I plan each year’s gardening calendar, decisions about when to plant are influenced by when I want to be away. Over the years, I’ve learned that with the help of gardening friends to water and to raise lights as indoor seeded plants grow I can arrange planting timetables that open spaces for travel throughout the year.

Sometime in April, early or later depending on weather and when I’m home, I begin planting seeds in the ground, salad greens, spring turnips, carrots, beets, fennel and potatoes. In May I continue with seeds that need a little more warmth to germinate, corn and beans directly in the ground and squash in pots to germinate before setting them out as soon as they’ve formed true leaves. Late May is also the time to start leeks in pots or in a nursery bed so I can transplant pencil-size stalks in early July.

June to late July I’m thinking ahead to fall and winter vegetables, direct seeding parsnips in early June, starting Brussels sprouts indoors a week later, then cabbage, more broccoli and cauliflower indoors. In July I start kale, chard and more fennel, carrots and beets as well as winter turnips and rutabaga.

Early August and on into September I start seed of hardy greens like mache, arugula, mustards and radicchios. And from October to January I harvest fall and winter crops but have no more seeds to plant.

This planting summary suggests that October through January would be great months to travel and they are. Weeks of hiking and backpacking, more weeks of skiing, and longer trips farther away find room in the calendar. But spring is great for travel too. Attention to planting timetables and the help of a kind friend who’s happy to share my seed starting room to start her own plants make it possible.

Last year, I was away from the garden for most of April. Knowing that tomatoes take about six weeks from seeding to setting into the ground, I started tomato seeds on February 17th and set out sturdy plants in the greenhouse on March 27th a few days before leaving for a month.

The same day I started tomatoes I also started some broccoli and cauliflower and set these starts out in the garden just before we left. On March 1st I seeded a flat of onions and set robust plants out in the garden when I returned at the end of April. Also on March 1st I started a flat of sugar snap peas and set them out in the garden on March 18th. Finally, because I wanted to have eggplant and pepper starts ready to plant out when I returned, I started seeds in 1-inch cells on March 8th , moved these tiny seedlings to 4-inch pots three weeks later, just before leaving, and when I returned in a month sturdy plants were ready for the garden.

This year I’ll be traveling for most of March and into April. Encouraged by my success last year, I modified the timetable slightly. I’ll be back April 5th so I started tomatoes February 22nd and hope for plants to set out soon after I return. I’m starting eggplant and peppers in 2×2 inch pots March 6th, the day before I leave, and hope they’ll be ready to pot up into 4-inch pots when I return and then be ready for the garden a few weeks after that. I seeded onions on March 1st again this year but not peas. This spring has been so cold and wet that I’ll wait until I return to plant peas. And I’ll leave the broccoli and cauliflower I started February 22nd in 4-inch pots and hope they won’t be too overgrown to set out when I return.

Finding a balance between garden and travel, between being home and being away is a challenge for a year-round kitchen gardener but the adventure of travel makes it worth the effort.